95. European Biological Medicine with Dr. Sharon Stills

Dr. Sharon Stills 0:04

If you have stagnant limps, there's no way you can be healthy

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:12

welcome to the your longevity blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You are about to hear from Dr. Sharon stills. Today we're gonna dive into European biological medicine. Talk about the use of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, mindfulness and even how important lymphatic health is. We're really going to dive into limp today so let's get started

Welcome to another episode of The your longevity blueprint Podcast. Today my guest is Dr. Sharon stills who is a naturopathic medical doctor who helps perimenopausal and menopausal women to pause and evaluate life so they can live the second act of their story stronger, healthier, and sexier while aging backwards using her 20 plus years of experience and extensive training and background in European biological medicine, anti aging therapies and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. She has successfully helped 1000s of women transition gently through the different stages of their lives with all natural methods.

Dr. stills is passionate about spreading the word about her signature red hot sexy men Oh pause program that philosophy she developed for you to reinvent your health, explore your spirit and discover your sexy so that you too can create and live the life you desire and deserve. She founded and ran one of the largest and most successful naturopathic clinics in the country for a decade, and is the host of the science of self healing podcast. She's an expert physician for Women's Health Network, and she educates other physicians as the CO lead North American lecture for the Paracelsus Academy in Switzerland. Patients work with Dr. stills in a variety of ways, through telemedicine consults and her life changing retreats for individuals or small groups and healing and rejuvenating locations around the world. Some patients will even fly in to see her or fly and just to get the chance to work with her one on one. Welcome to the show, Dr. stills.

Dr. Sharon Stills 2:08

Thank you. Thank you for the nice introduction.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:11

I want to hear more about this European biological medicine. But before we dive into that, tell me your story. So how did you get started in your healing journey? And then help you others?

Dr. Sharon Stills 2:21

Oh, gosh, well, I think a lot of us have that wounded healer story. So we we had our own health issues. And that's how we became a physician ourselves. And I'm no different. So growing up, I was so sick, I had severe allergies, I had severe asthma, so much so that the pediatrician wanted to name one of his exam rooms after me. It's a nice honor to have a room named after you or not. Because you're always in it's sick. And I was in and out of hospitals and just felt horrible. That was in my younger years. Then in my teen years, I was had so many hormonal issues, I was depressed, I was overweight, then I got into being addicted because I wasn't happy in my life. So I went through being addicted to everything from A to Z.

And then by the time I was 20, I was married and pregnant with my first son. And that was a wake up call for me. I don't want you know how it is as mothers, we we want the best for our children better than we have. And so I thought I don't want my son to suffer. I was sick. I don't want him to inherit these things that I dealt with. I started delving into what are other options, and I happen to live next door to someone whose brother was a colon hydrotherapist of all things. So my first introduction into natural medicine was having a tube stuck up your butt to clean out your fridge. So I got started and people can see. So from there, I got really into nutrition. And I remember so we're talking about 1989 This is before the internet. I remember sitting on the floor of Wegmans that was the natural health food store.

I don't even think Whole Foods was around back then. And I was just sitting on the floor there was three little shelves of natural kinds of foods. And I was just looking through what can I give my son that will make him be healthy because I don't want him to suffer like I did. And then what happened was I ended up having another son and getting divorced. And then I needed to support my two children. And I thought well, I can go back to being administrative assistant because that's what I had been doing before I had my kids or I thought I can live my passion. Because work is something we spend so many hours at. And you talk about I know your podcast is all about longevity. And one of the things I'm always dealing with patients is what do you do?

Are you happy because we spend more hours at work probably than anywhere else. So back then I just decided I I want to be happy, I want to live my passion. I was devouring any book I could get my hands on at the time. And I thought I had struggled to figure out what I could do for my son. Because when I took them to the pediatrician, it was just you needed antibiotics, because my son at the time was having eczema, and he was having ear infections. And it wasn't until my next door neighbor told me, You got to get him off dairy and all these other things. So I thought I had struggled to figure it out for my son, I thought, why don't I go to school and so I can become a pediatrician and help other parents so they don't have to struggle, like I did.

And then I heard about this thing called naturopathic school, I was living in Buffalo, New York at the time, and there was a doctor across the border in Canada, because that's where it was licensed. And I remember packing up the kids and going across the border and going to see him. And I just remember standing in his parking lot when I walked out and said, I'm going to do what he does, because he's really cool. Now was and I just really use the power of intention. Because I was 24, I had a three year old and a one year old, I was divorced, my ex husband was not going to be contributing in any way. And I didn't really realize at the time that to do what he did, I still had to go get an undergraduate degree. So it was a 10 year journey of schooling and commitment, and I just kept affirming it, I'm going to be a naturopathic physician. And I did it and that's

Dr. Stephanie Gray 6:25

wonderful. That's how I got started. That's awesome. So where does European biological medicine come in? Then? When did you start transitioning and learning that we've talked about functional medicine and anti aging medicine on the podcast? And maybe this is similar? Or maybe it's different? So can you speak to that

Dr. Sharon Stills 6:43

I was in so I went to southwest College of naturopathic medicine, which is an Arizona it's one of the accredited naturopathic medical schools, there's not that many of them. When I was there, there was these opportunities to be student reps for companies. And so you could learn their product line and help educate the students. And I thought, Oh, that's a great idea. I want to do that. And Thorne, which you've probably heard of, yeah, he had a student rep position. And I was like, I'm going to be the store and student rep. I was so sure that I went for my interview. I figured I nailed it.

And then I found out my classmate got the job and not me. And my ego was like, how could she have gotten it? So I took a few deep breaths and calm down and just went along my way. And then very soon after I got offered another student rep, which was to work with pleomorphic products. That was the name of the company at the time, they distributed the Sonam remedies. And the Sonam remedies. Were these remedies that these doctors who had really great results around town were using, and I thought I want to know what they're doing.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:48

So I don't know what that is, you'll have to tell us what the moral of that

Dr. Sharon Stills 7:51

story is trust in the universe, because what's yours will come to you and what's your will not be offered to you. So I was very fortunate that I didn't get the Thorne job, I got this job. And I started working with the clinics in Switzerland at the time, Dr. Rao was leading the Paracelsus clinic. And while I was in medical school, I started lecturing around the country to physicians to deals to other naturopaths about the pleomorphic products and the Sonam remedies. And so the Sonam remedies are a group of remedies. They're Eisah Pathak remedies. So they are similar to Homeopathics in the way of impaired but they actually have physical constituents in them. So instead of a 200x, being stronger than a 30x, it's the opposite. The higher the X, actually, the stronger the product is because it does have constituents.

And I could talk for hours on this. So I'll just briefly say it's based upon the theory of pleomorphism and terrain theory rather than germ theory. And so we know that's pretty hot topic now. Can you catch something and then there are the schools of thought which is subscribed to have that we don't catch anything, we build a healthy, happy, inherent body, and the terrain takes care of things. And so a good example of that. So from pleomorphism, is that strep lives in our throats, and it is a natural symbiotic organism in our bodies. But when we are stressed when our pH is off when our lymph is congested, when we have focal blockades when there are issues going on in our terrain, then the strep goes through a pleomorphic process where it upgrades and becomes pathogenic rather than, than symbiotic.

And so these remedies help bring these bacterial forms these fungal forms these viral forms back into a symbiotic relationship with the body. And so I got really involved in that and that's how I got into European biological medicine. And so I am a naturopath trained and of course, I've studied functional medicine for Whatever as well. And so I integrate all of that, along with traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda and everything else I've studied along the way. But European bio regulatory medicine is something that's out in the foundation, and really is why I can have such great results, why I work with very sick people, cancer patients, autoimmune people who don't know what's wrong with them, because it really looks deeper.

So functional medicine is looking at the microbiome at the gut, it's looking at heavy metals, getting them out, and so forth. European bio regulatory medicine is looking at the extracellular matrix, it's looking at the lymphatic system, it's looking at bioenergetics, it's looking at the constitution of a patient. So we all have different constitutions, and how we express illness is related to our Constitution. And so it takes into account that, hey, are you a good detoxify? Or are you not a good detoxifier. So it's just I feel like it's like the base, the foundation level, from there, which we can grow.

It really looks at blockages. So big part of European bio regulatory medicine is the teeth. And so dental health and so I'm always kicking patients out of my office, sending them off to go to the dentist, because until they clear the blocks in their mouth, doesn't matter what I do, they're not really going to get better, I'm looking at their scars, which can really affect their autonomic nervous system. So I'm obviously looking to make sure I'm looking through heart rate variability, making sure that they're in the parasympathetic mode, which I'm sure you know, most people do not start off that way. And it takes a lot of work to get them there living in the environment that we live in these days in our, in our universe.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 11:44

I have about 10 More questions I want to ask based on what you just said, but so did you. When did you get to travel to Switzerland,

Dr. Sharon Stills 11:51

I've been back and forth to Switzerland many times to Germany many times. And that's where I learned a lot of this medicine. And so in Switzerland, for instance, the medical clinic has a dental clinic, they work hand in hand. And we don't really have that here. I have dentists that I work with hand in hand, but right there, it's under the same roof. So when they're doing Grand Rounds and looking at the patients, that dentistry is right there, first and foremost. And then of course, in Switzerland, they're able to do things like hyperthermia and I use for Rhesus and live cell therapies, they're led to do a lot of things that the FDA doesn't like us doing here, because they actually work.

So So I work a lot whether sending patients, they are bringing patients there and learning what's going on there so that I can do as much of it here in the states that I can that's legal that's allowed and then sending if you have to send a patient over because they need, which it always blows my mind that hyperthermia is illegal or whatever you want to which you know, hyperthermia is just heating up to the body to increase white blood cell production and seems like it should be pretty okay, but it's not unfortunately,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:07

I looked at the Para Celsus Academy's website, but I didn't catch what city is that in, in Switzerland.

Dr. Sharon Stills 13:14

It's loosed meal.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:16

I don't even know what that is.

Dr. Sharon Stills 13:18

Nothing near is so when you go you fly into Zurich, and take the train to St. Gallen, which is like usually where we stay. It's the biggest city the biggest little city nearby. But loose meal is where the clinic is in the clinic actually has just undergone a lot of changes. So I'm actually have branched out and work with some other clinics there, as well. Dr. Thomas Rao, who you may have heard of, he was at Paracelsus clinic for probably over 20 years. And he just recently left and there's new ownership. So it's a little topsy turvy right now.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:53

I was going to talk about menopause, which we're going to go back to that. But let's stay on the topic of the importance of dental health for a moment here. You talked about blockages in the mouth. So what you mean by that

Dr. Sharon Stills 14:03

first and foremost would be amalgam fillings. So anyone who's listening, if you open your mouth and you see silver in there, or metals in there, those need to come out. And of course, I'm not telling you I'm not prescribing what you should do, but it is advised that you find a good biological dentist because one of the things I'll just say this, so for anyone listening, if you're like, oh my gosh, I have amalgam fillings, I have metals, I'm just gonna go to the dentist and get rid of them. That is not a good idea. Because if you go to someone who doesn't know what they're doing, it's worse than your mouse. And so I always when I take a new patient and I'm doing their intake, it's always like, how would you get him removed?

If they say they had to remove them? If they're like, Oh, my dentist did it. You know, he just thought he would do it for me and he didn't really protect me or prepare me or drain me or anything. I just cry a little in front of you. And I just go, Okay, we're gonna have to do a little work because then I know they're just going to be laid in with metals in their tissues and their fat cells and so forth. So it's really important to be prepared to make sure you're draining your monkey theories, your eliminatory organs are open and you're draining before you undertake that. And when you do it, that you go to a dentist who prepares you properly protects you, it's great to have vitamin C drips running and then afterwards to be properly draining as well. And then you can go and do heavy metal like provoked heavy metal test to see what's left in your body.

So I never do heavy metal testing on someone, if they have a mouthful of metals, you want to wait until the metals out. And then of course, root canals are another biggie that can really mess up regulation. So each tooth is related to acupuncture meridian. So for example, your front two teeth are the kidney and bladder meridian. Upper molars are the stomach meridian, and the breast lies on the stomach Meridian because the stomach Meridian goes right through the breasts. So those are very common, that there will be a root canal in those teeth, and a woman will have breast cancer. So often, if you go to Switzerland, you have breast cancer, though, if you have a root canal, those are coming out. And they did a study where they really looked and saw, I think it was like 100 patients who had breast cancer, 97 of them had a root canal in that tooth.

So there's really a correlation between doing something to that tooth, and having an effect the organ and it can go the other way to where there's something happening in the organ, and it can come up and affect the tooth as well. So it's a reciprocal relationship there. Anytime we start talking dentist and teeth, it's it's a very touchy such situation, not many people want to go to the dentist want to have teeth removed. And when you're in Europe, it's pretty hardcore. Here in the States, there's a little bit of a discussion, but the way I was trained is if there's a root canal, the tooth comes out. So I think it's, so I do thermography scans, and it looks at all the teeth, the regulation of the teeth, so I can see, this tooth is not regulating. So if I see someone who has a tooth that's not regulating, and there's a root canal there, and then I'm like, yes, that tooth needs to come out. If they have a root canal and the tooth is regulating, and their health is good. Optimally, it's still want to get rid of it.

But again, if it's in a place for their bite or their smile, sometimes we can just do ozone injections and things to keep the regulation open. So it's really an individual situation, but the health of the mouth is so overlooked. I used to think like that too, because we've just kind of been trained, you go to the dentist once a year to get your teeth cleaned. And if you have any fillings, they fill them. And we never really stopped to think the mouth is actually connected to the rest of the body. It's the beginning of our digestive tract. And it really does interact with our organs and our health. And so making sure you have proper gum health, making sure if you have metals in your mouth, which I don't recommend, but if you have metals in your mouth, there can be galvanic currents of the metals interacting with each other. So it's important to go to a dentist who measures the galvanic city of what's going on in your mouth as well and then how you're being filled. So white fillings are very popular if you're not going to get metals but you have to think of the white fillings are plastic and is there BPA in them.

So going with something more of like a ceramic filling is a lot safer. Also implants go and keep going. So implants also So the big thing is to get titanium implants so you pull a tooth and then you put an implant. However titanium is just as toxic as Mercury. So the biological way now to do it is to use as your conium implant. So all of these things are just really important to know and kind of have a handle on because if you go and do implants, that's like a huge undertaking financially, mentally, emotionally, physically and then to have someone say Alright, well now you put toxic implants negative redo everything that is super stressful, and that does not contribute to healing. So it's just good to know about these things. If you find yourself in a position that you go wait a second, what that doctor said, I better find a holistic dentist, a biological dentist who really knows what they're doing.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:39

I've had patients report all sorts of crazy symptoms resolved when their root canals are removed like overnight. It's nuts. It is it's sometimes you just wonder like holy cow. And this episode will launch after an interview that I did with a biologic dentist who does talk about root canal removal and safe removal of mercury fillings, so Well, we have him as a resource as well, especially if you're local, especially if you're local. I liked that. You mentioned that. After you mentioned blockages, you mentioned scars, are you talking about scars in the mouth or just scars in the body in general, that you're assessing for

Dr. Sharon Stills 20:13

scars all over the body. So I mean, the original scars, the umbilicus. But scars in the tonsils, from removals scars from an appendix removal scars from an accident, Scar is a big one is C section, scars on the breasts if there's been reconstruction, or C or Yeah, so lots of scars. And so scars that's from the neurotherapy school of thought, which is also a European by regulatory way of thinking. And so the scars just like we're talking about root canals, the scars also create blockages in the autonomic nervous system, in the organs in the meridians. And so, plus scars can hold a lot of emotions, because especially like C sections. Now some women do Plan A C section. But often C sections happen because they're an errand emergency C section. And a lot of trauma goes along with that. And a lot of women which I'm on a mission to change, but women like to beat themselves up and need to be perfect.

And so when a woman plans and natural pregnancy and has to have a C section, a lot of energy and emotions go into that scar. So injecting the scar with procane. And you can use other remedies to open up the scar helps to release the scar, it resets the nervous system. And a lot of times, patients will cry, they'll release the trauma, which is really important. We want to do everything we can to be releasing our trauma. And so clearing the mouth clearing the scars, those are some foundational things to look at before working with any patient because it's just going to it's going to level the playing field. So not to say microbiome isn't important. And all those things. Of course, they're important. But these are just kind of the way I look at the body of foundational things. I want to clear as much as I can. So the body is able to regulate better. I love it. I love it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:13

Okay, let's go on to drainage. So you've mentioned even before having a root canal or or basically before even having your mouth worked on, you want to make sure your body is draining well. So when you say draining Well, do you mean that the lymph is moving that nothing stagnant that you're having regular bowels, or can you speak more to that? And let's, if you're talking about lymphatics, can you talk about the importance of the lymphatic system?

Dr. Sharon Stills 22:34

Yes. So yeah, so I call them the among theories, which is an old Nature Cure term, which is your eliminatory organs. So just what you said, Yes, make sure your balance are moving. If you're a woman, make sure that your flow is flowing your monthly cycle, because I think of that as an elimination is drainage through the uterus, kidneys, your lymphatic system, your liver, your lungs, your skin. So those are the main ones we look at. And so you want to make sure, a lot of times when patients have what's called a Herxheimer reaction where they're detoxing, and then they get sick. That's because they weren't properly draining at first. And so when they started to detox, the toxins that started to be mobilized, had nowhere to go.

And so they just recirculated and made sicker. And so it's really important that we think in a process way of okay, we want to open everything up. Are the lungs working, does this patient know how to breathe because most of us don't know how to breathe and forget about breathing is one of the greatest tools we have for healing is the lymphatic moving the lymph is this last system that no one really pays attention to. In general medicine. You can go to a cardiologist you can go to a pulmonologist, a urologist, but you can't go to a lymphology cyst. And the lymph is so important for circulating for bringing in good nutrients for getting rid of the toxins. If you have stagnant lymph, there's no way you can be healthy, and the lymph unlike our blood, and our circulatory system doesn't move automatically. So you and I are sitting at our desk talking to each other over zoom. And our heart is still pumping our blood but are not doing anything now unless we get up and start moving. And so it's really important that we pay attention to actually moving our lymph that we make it a daily practice.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:39

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love it, love it. Love it. So how does someone know if they have stagnant lymph? Like other than having constipation or Herxheimer reaction? Like? How do you know if their lungs are open? If they're breathing well, or if they're like, I'm thinking more like fluid retention if the patient's puffy,

Dr. Sharon Stills 25:56

definitely puffy cellulite. If you're constantly sick, if you're bloated, if you're fatigued, if you have weight gain, I will tell you so I mentioned that demography before many people listening may have heard of a thermography machine as a picture and something you do in lieu of a mammography. So the thermography machine I use is not just a camera, because those infrared cameras, they were really calibrated for the army. And they were calibrated to be able to look at tunnels and bridges, they weren't really calibrated to look at what's going on in the human body. And so there's some benefit to them, but I don't really trust them. And so the one I use is from Germany, and it's computerized regulation tomography. And what it does is uses the handheld infrared sensor that takes point readings over 130 points all over the body.

So I mentioned before that it takes the point so does all the teeth it does the sinuses, and it does your limbs. So it's the only tool that I know of that actually is a diagnostic tool for the lymphatic system can't really run blood, we're on the lymphatic system, you can't really run urine or saliva, there's really no tests to do for the lymphatic system, except for this thermography. So I've been working with this thermography for 20 years since I've been in practice. I learned about it in Switzerland when I would go over to the clinic. And I can tell you that every single patient has messed up length. Like I never saw a patient where I was like, Oh, my goodness, your lymph looks amazing. And so it just really got me thinking that everyone needs their lymphatic system address, because think of how we are as a population, where they say sitting is the new smoking. So many people are sedentary, they don't move, they don't sweat.

And what I also found was that so if you have heard about the lymphatic system, you've probably heard you should dry skin brush, and you should bounce up and down on a little trampoline on. So what I found was those don't make changes in the lymphatic readings, nor does just taking some lymphatic herbs, you really have to be getting in there. Moving it with a light beam generator, the limb star with color, I do color puncture color, to different points will move the lymphatics you have to be sweating, and doing the drainage remedies and taking the herbs and doing the dry skin brushing. But I found that it wasn't enough to just do those simple things that are lymph is really stuck. And so it's a crucial part in getting everything open.

So things can flow through the extracellular matrix and can get to the cells were always so concerned with taking the right supplement. But if we don't clear the highway, to get to the cells, the supplements start to bog down the body, they start to become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. And I'm a huge fan of supplements. I mean, I'm not by my supplement cabinet. But if I showed it to you, you're like, Oh yeah, she takes a lot of stuff. So I'm not saying anything wrong about supplements, again, it's thinking in a systematic way and opening everything up. So when you do go in and give you get the best bang for your buck, and you get a good reaction from the body.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:20

So what can viewers do at home to get their lymph moving?

Dr. Sharon Stills 29:23

Oh my gosh, there is a lot of things they can do. So first of all foundational make sure you're hydrated. My optimal is three liters a day. What's usually out there as minimum half your weight in ounces. So if you weigh 200 and 100, which then you'd be getting your three liters, especially if you're working out and sweating and sweating is one of the really important things and so I am a hot yoga junkie. I love hot yoga, because you get to exercise you get to meditate and you get to sweat so it's like you kill three birds with one stone. It's a great, great investment of your time. Some people either love hot yoga or they hate hot yoga. So most of the studios have a 30 day $30 I recommend trying it, of course, get your physician's approval. And if you hate the first class, go back for another one. Sometimes it takes a few. And then if you still really hate it, well, then you still really hate it. And you don't have no but if you love it, now you've got a great therapy that's just going to help your lymph moving because you're stretching and you're sweating.

You can sit in an infrared sauna, which I love as well. But there's no sweat like a hot yoga sweat. It just nothing compares. But Infrared Saunas are great compression therapies are great. If there's someone in your neighborhood who does lymphatic massage, does color puncture. So that's what I'm trained in from Germany. But there are color punctures scattered across the states across the globe. And using yellow is a really good color. We use crystal like a point in a handheld to move the lymphatic system. There's the light beam generator, there's the Lymph Star, we had the photon Genie in my clinic that we use holding up these rods to move the lymphatic system, neural therapy. So for instance, I was talking about the thermography. So if I see that the tonsils are blocked, and the tonsils are this gateway to the lymph, lymph. And we have also the glymphatic system in our brain.

So making sure you're sleeping so the brain can drain. But I'll go in and inject with procaine and some homeopathic remedies into the tonsils to open up that area. And of course, then yes, you can still dry skin brush, you can still move just even walking. We want to be walking frequently or standup desks. So you're going up and down and not just sitting all day long length drainage remedies, so the complex Homeopathics that help drain. Also there are creams. Phytolacca is an herb I'll use that topically. Yes. Oh, and I love castor oil packs. So they also just help drain and you can put castor oil packs. So often after I do with thermography, nine out of 10 women are getting some kind of castor oil pack in their life, whether it be on their liver or on their breasts or to their neck to the lymph. So those are just some things that you can do at home or that you can go explore.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 32:15

Awesome, thank you. I love that we have not talked about not very much about lymphatic drainage. So that was good. Let's go back to menopause. Your bio speaks about helping women pause so they can live their second best half right in their life. So when you say pause that makes me think like meditation, deep breathing? And is that what you mean by pause? Is meditation something you incorporate it with your practice? I've heard you say mindfulness is the best medicine. So I'll let you respond to that.

Dr. Sharon Stills 32:44

So yes, I am trained to teach mindfulness meditation. And I do that was another thing I was very fortunate to find in my early days in medical school. So I always say I grew up as a bio regulatory physician, as mindfulness meditation, being the best medicine there is and just got incorporated into the way I think, as a physician. And so I definitely am a huge fan of breathwork of mindfulness, when I say pause, as far as menopause. To me, the first and foremost thing is about the actual art, an act of pausing, we say menopause, and we're talking about the cessation of our menstrual period. But to me, it's this beautiful opportunity to pause in our lives, and really look at where have we been? Where are we currently? And where do we want to go? Because if we don't do that for ourselves, not even our best friend is going to do that. They're busy, you know, starring in their own story, and and so and we, we don't have that incorporated into our culture, to review our life to think about our life.

And that's why sadly, I think so many people die, and they have regrets and they are unfulfilled, and they didn't live the life they really dreamed of living. And so that breaks my heart. I feel like for women, when they get to menopause, it's this. To me, it's the beginning of the sacred second act. And I think there's actually an act after that. So I'm all about longevity. But it's the second act of where if you had children, probably they're close to flying the coop and leaving, the nest is going to become empty. Maybe you're still working but maybe you're thinking of winding down or retiring. And it's just this opportunity to look at who've I've been taking care of have I been taking care of myself because most of the time it's you've been taking care of everyone else and not yourself and so when I work with women, we really look at that and what what are your dreams? What did you dream of what do you want to do what what lights you up?

Because so often we just get stuck in the the rat race the the hat, the hat betrayal wheel where we wake up, we run around, we do the errands we go to work, we if we're lucky, we grab a workout or we catch a yoga class. But we never really stopped to think about what our dreams are. What did you dream of as a child. So for me, when I went through menopause, I climbed Kilimanjaro. And I stood on top of Kilimanjaro and the universe worked out perfectly that it was literally one year after I'd stopped my cycle. And that was perfect menopause. That was because of airlines actually lost our luggage. And so our climb started a couple of days late. And that's like my thing. When my youngest son went off to college, and I had an empty nest, we went and climbed did the Inca Trail and to Machu Picchu. Because hiking is a big love of mine. And when my kids were young, I was a single mom, raising them on my own.

And so it was hard to travel. And one of my things that lights me up, is traveling in nature. And so I like to celebrate and mark these big occasion. We're so big to Mark, we mark deaf, we mark marriage, we mark births, but I'm about marking, menopause, and Venus, divorce all these other things, all these big turning points in our life. And so that's what I did to celebrate menopause. And it was for me to say, this is just the beginning. You're not getting older, I mean, I am getting older. But this doesn't mean you're winding down and can do things because I run retreats, we call them women of wisdom while retreats. And we do salon style circles with the talking sticks and share our feelings. And I've heard things that women really believed until they came to a retreat that menopause is the end means you're going to die soon means you can have sex means you're old mean all these fallacies. And so I wanted to just stand on top of that mountain and say this is just the beginning for me. My body is healthier now than it ever was because you hear a lot. Oh yeah, I went through menopause and it's just not the same. And well, I'm getting older. So that's what's to be expected. And I'm here to say that yes.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:11

You're celebrating menopause. I love that. I love that. Our bodies are naturally designed to handle stress, detoxify chemicals and preserve cell function. But when the burden increases, those naturally built in systems can't keep up with demand and we start to experience physiological changes in our bodies. What causes that burden to increase, unfortunately, a whole list of things including common modern lifestyle habits like poor dietary choices, lack of sleep, abundance of stress, exposure to chemicals and exercise extremes just to name a few. To protect ourselves from this oxidative stress, our bodies are forced to use up stores of the master antioxidant glutathione.

And this works for a while. But when those stores become used up, however, our body doesn't have enough antioxidant capacity to protect itself allowing the stress to our body systems to cause lasting damage. That's why I recommend many of my patients take glutathione daily to help protect their natural reserves, support full detoxification capacity and help keep their immune systems functioning at full strength. Use code glutathione for 10% off at your longevity blueprint.com. Now back to the show. Part of at least how I treat patients who are in menopause is with bioidentical hormones. Is that part of European? Am I saying this right biologic medicine? Is that something that you also use with your patients?

Dr. Sharon Stills 38:29

It is and and we call it bio regulatory medicine. So yes, they do use some hormones over there. But I think we have a much better handle on that over here. So I really integrate the best of everything. So I'm a huge bioidentical hormone proponent. And I would say that what I did learn over there a long time ago, which now is more common knowledge, but for instance, testosterone doesn't cause prostate cancer, we actually use testosterone to treat prostate cancer. Estrogen doesn't cause breast cancer, we actually use certain forms of estrogen to treat breast cancer. And so bits and pieces, but a lot of my knowledge and training of biodun declined. I think we have better testing over here when it comes to the I credit a lot. I've learned a lot from Jonathan Wright, who I think is yes, I've

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:27

I did the a forum fellowship. Yeah, he's smart. Yeah. So funny, smart guy.

Dr. Sharon Stills 39:32

He's the grandfather of AI. He wrote the first script for bias so I tend to find who's at the top and knows what they're doing and then I you know, learn from everything. So so it is part of it, but more that how I integrated in with looking at all the other things because I just won't give someone hormones unless we've really looked at their terrain and made sure the lymph is flowing and everything is clear because I don't feel like it's gonna benefit them as much. And I really want women and men to take control of their health and their body. And it's sort of easy to just take some hormones and feel fantastic. But if you just do that, and you don't do the other things ill health is gonna catch up with you. So I'm kind of very strict about who I let refill their hormones, and I make sure what they're doing, and they've done everything.

So sometimes we're like, No, you're not allowed to have your hormones because you got to do Y and Z. And you know, because you use them in your practice how great they feel I always tease I was just lecturing a couple of weeks ago about this. And I was talking about progesterone. And I had a picture on the PowerPoint of a bouquet of flowers. And I'm like, you might be thinking, why is there flowers for progesterone, I'm like, that's because if I want to fulfill my flower addiction, and get patients husbands to send me flowers, I give the patient progesterone that has been so happy that his wife is back. And then I get flowers. It's like a really big deal.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 41:04

Hormones are life changing. But I love that you say, and maybe I should be doing this to withholding hormones until patients are compliant with other aspects of lifestyle. So I love that. I want to go back to thermography for a minute there because because you're also being wise and that you're potentially screening patients for any existing cancer also before you wouldn't give them hormones. So what have you found with your thermography machine? Like do you detect cancers do you detect you find those sorts of things?

Dr. Sharon Stills 41:32

Absolutely. So for women, that thermography machine is a specific screening for breast cancer. And for men, it's a screen for prostate cancer. And so we have 13 different criteria that we look at from the teeth. We were talking about the stomach meridian, to the liver to the sternum, which is the breast bone. So the sternum is a big regulatory component for whether someone has an issue with their breast. There's about four of those markers or lymphatic markers. So it's always lymph, lymph, lymph is always one of the first things and we know a lot of breast cancers start in that upper outer quadrant. And so that's where all that lymph is. It's also looking at there's different patterns that have just been seen over and over again, in tomography scans. So we're looking at the opposite ovary, we're looking at the liver health.

And I didn't mention before. But another important among theory, is the gallbladder because of the bile production. And so we always think about the liver phase one and phase two, but I think of a gallbladder phase three. And so that's another important one. So yes, I do use it as a screen for breast cancer, you can see the temperature differences. So anything more than like a half a degree change. If one breast is hotter than the other. I'm concerned and we're starting to do things and then rechecking so I, there's no double blind PLACEBO studies, as in a lot of the medicine we both do. But I know that I have saved so many women because I can see in their thermography, their lymphatics and the teeth and the liver, and all of these things.

And we can reverse that through therapies and then recheck. So it's a really and breast cancer is one of my specialties. I, when I told you in the beginning of the story, I went to school to become a pediatrician. And I did I went through all my clinical rotations were around pediatrics and psychiatric because I had a brother who had committed suicide. And so I wanted to learn that as well. And then I opened up my clinic and the seventh patient in my door was an elderly gentleman in his late 60s, who had pancreatic cancer and was told he was going to die. And he was driving by and saw my sign and said, what can you do for me? And I was like, I had never seen a cancer patient in all of medical school. So I was like, Oh, my goodness, but then I remembered that saying, I always say that the universe will only send you what you can handle.

And so I was honest with him, I said, Yes, I've never treated a cancer patient, no less end stage pancreatic cancer patient said, but I'm philosophy of how the body works and heals, and I can apply that to you and we can see what happens. And he did it and he ended up being cured. And it was like a huge lesson for me. Don't be bogged down in diagnosis. Remember how the body works, it doesn't really matter what and of course, I did some more special things because of what his diagnosis was.

But then they took me to his church and celebrated me and long story short, I started getting a lot of cancer patients. And so my practice changed. And I started doing a lot of naturopathic oncology. And then I had a patient walk in with Suzanne Somers book many years ago. And then this is probably like, almost 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and she said, I want to do this Suzanne Somers wrote this book about bioidentical hormones and I want some. And I was like, All right, I thought she was an actress. But okay. I was like, give me the book. Let me read the book and I read the book. And I thought, wow, this is very naturopathic replacing with sub physiological doses giving what the body makes, as Dr. Jonathan Wright always says, copy nature. And so I thought I could definitely do this and add in the other things I know. And that's how I got into menopause and bioidentical hormones. And so it's always, I learned so much from my patients, as much as they learned from me if not more,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 45:37

totally agreed good story to wrap up the show. Before I close this out here, I asked every guest what their top longevity tip is. You've given us a lot of tips today. But what's your top longevity tip?

Dr. Sharon Stills 45:47

I would say breathing, sleeping and having sex? I'll give you three.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 45:54

Okay, I'll take it. I haven't heard anyone say what everyone says sleeping but not breathing or having sex? Well, well tell us where listeners can find you again, where your clinic is your website. And I hear you have a free gift for the listeners as well.

Dr. Sharon Stills 46:10

I do I have my five minutes about menopause ebook, where they can learn that we talked about some of them so they can read a little bit more. And then basically I'm Dr. Sharon spills on Facebook, I do have a red hot sexy menopause Facebook group. Although I think I'm going to be migrating to circles and Facebook where the censorship is I'm Dr. Sharon stills on Instagram. I do do a lot of work for the bio regulatory Medicine Institute where br mi data online. So if any of this European stuff I was talking about fascinated you, you can go to our website. And we just have so much information there articles about current topics and all of these things that I've been talking about. So I host their podcast, which is the science of self healing. And so I'm really just passionate. We want bio regulatory medicine, just like functional medicine has become very popular. We want bio regulatory medicine to be right up there with it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 47:09

Awesome. Well, I look forward I want to read that the five myths of menopause also. So thank you so much today for coming on the show talking about the importance of dental or or I should say oral health and importance of lymphatics and reminding my listeners that women can transition gently through different stages in life with natural methods and really celebrate menopause and menopause. At is a time to celebrate. So thank you so much today for your brilliance. Thanks for coming on the show. You're welcome.

Dr. Sharon Stills 47:32

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 47:36

What a fun interview. I love how she encouraged us to really think about what lights us up. What did we dream of doing as a child? And are we doing that now? She sure inspired me to mark events in my life more than weddings and funerals and I encourage you to do the same. As she said menopause can be just the beginning for you. To connect further with Dr. stills visit Dr. stills.com. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck, you can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab.

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The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai